This invention relates to sorting apparatus and more particularly relates to sorting apparatus wherein the weight of each item is used to identify that item.
In many environments it is desirable to sort a multitude of items of varying shapes and sizes received at a number of input locations into several different defined categories. One example is in the baggage handling system of an airport where incoming baggage from passengers at various reception points must be sorted according to the flight number and destination of the passenger and routed to the proper baggage loading area associated with each flight.
In most airports, there are several stations which receive baggage from passengers for loading onto the airplanes. Baggage is received from passengers at the airline ticket counters and it is also received from passengers at curbside by sky caps or porters. Further, baggage is transferred from one flight to another by passengers changing airplanes. The baggage received at these various stations must somehow be routed to the flight line where it can be loaded onto the proper airplane as determined by the number of the flight to which the passenger is assigned and the destination of the passenger.
At the present time, most airports use a system in which tags are placed on the baggage when it is received from the passenger, the tag indicating the number of the flight to which the baggage is assigned. The baggage is then placed on a conveyor which moves the baggage from the reception point to a control station near the airplane flight line where a baggage attendant reads the tag and then routes the baggage according to the information contained on the tag. The above system is subject to human errors, either in reading the tag or in routing the bag to its proper destination resulting in lost and delayed baggage. Also, increasing wage pressures mean that the baggage system is expensive in terms of man hours of attendant time.
There are automatic baggage handling systems presently in use. Most of the automatic systems use a special tag which is affixed to the baggage and upon which the destination information is encoded in machine readable form. After the information is coded on the tag, the baggage is passed to a machine which can read the encoded information and which controls the destination of the bag in the airport terminal. The use of machine readable tags has certain disadvantages, one being that a certain amount of time is taken in preparing the tag and properly affixing it to the baggage. Also, it is generally necessary to position the bag in a certain orientation on the conveyor so that the tag is in proper position for reading. Further, the tags are subject to physical damage during the baggage handling process between the time the tag is attached and the time it is read. Damage to the tag can cause misreading of the encoded data on the tag thereby resulting in misdirected baggage.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an apparatus for sorting items that is automatic.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a sorting apparatus that eliminates the need for special tags or machine readable labels on the units being sorted.
It is another object of this invention to provide a sorting apparatus that does not require any special positioning of the units being sorted and that will accept units of varying size and shape.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a sorting apparatus that utilizes the weight of each item being sorted to identify that particular item.